AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin Boxes of signatures gathered in Arizona Healthy Working Families Initiative's successful campaign to raise the state's minimum wage in 2016. That measure also reaffirmed that local governments may enact higher wage rates and other types of employment benefits in their communities. L abor activists in Arizona fought to uphold the law, and this time, the law won. In some areas of the country, conservative state legislators are trying to pre-empt municipal labor regulations on issues like paid sick days. Arizona legislators passed a measure last year , HB 2579, that bans towns, cities, and counties from requiring employers to provide “additional employee benefits.” Conservative Republicans, who constitute a majority in both chambers of the Arizona legislature, trampled on their own state constitution and a 2006 law passed by voter initiative that allows local governments to pass higher minimum wage rates and other types of employment benefits than the state...

We hear a lot of talk in the united states today about "family values" and "personal responsibility." And yet being a good family member here can cost you your job or a career opportunity, or imperil your health and security. Conversely, being a conscientious employee can jeopardize a loved one, destroy a relationship (or prevent you from forming one), add to the health or learning problems of a dependent child, force an aging parent into a nursing home, or create a public-health hazard. Choices Nobody Should Have to Make Consider these examples: Robbie, a member of the organization 9to5 in Milwaukee, lost her fast-food job when her son called to say that his younger brother had been hit by a car. "Leave and you're fired," the boss told her. Robbie pleaded with her manager to see the urgency of the situation, but he refused. She left anyway, and took the boy to the emergency room, where the hospital staff determined that he had a broken arm. Julie was in a much higher-paying job than...